The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1887-01-14

do believe, and heartily aud deeply believe,
then we should be all the more careful not
to speak OF God to the young child, be-
cause we shall inevitably degrade the idea
of God by introducing it toe early.
There is great mistake which people
make. They constantly read their own de-
sires their own needs, their own intellect
ual life into the child. They cannot un-
derstand the wide difference between the
child's mind and the mind ofan adult, hence
they think that as the idea oAod to them
is everything, therefore they cannot too
early give it to the child, forgetting to ask
themselves what the child does with that
idea.
What does the child do with the idea of
God? Why it simply makes him cruel,
personifies him, makes an idol of God, a
monstrosity of the idea, and hold the
child cannot help doing that. OF course
no religious teacher nowadays will say to
the child ''God is big man sitting on a
high chair above the Clouds" But no mat
ter what the religious teacher may say, the
teacher may even warn the child that God
is not big man, but that God is a spirit,
no child will receive the idea Of God other
wise than in corporal, in monstrously cor
poreal shape.
There are in the God idea two elements.
One an abstract element, the idea of a first
cause, vast and most abstruse general
ization of philsophic thought, that is ca
pable of being comprehended only by the
philosopher. The other element in the God
idea is the personal, the human element,
which all deep religious souls know to be
only symbolic. Since we are incapable of
conceiying of the ultimate principle of
things i'll its own essence, we use here the
philosophic opponents ofThesm, the quasi
human guse, the faint indication of the
human personality as a symbol to give the
mind something to hold on to, well know
ing that this personification of the ultimate
principle does not express the true essence,
but is only the faint sign of something far
above and beyond it.
But now take the child's mind. The
chiid's mind is not yet capable of abstract
reasoning. No child has the power except
in a very inferior degree of thinking ab-
stractly The child's thought is altogeth-
er concrete. Therefore if you present the
idea Of God to the ehild's mind, it follows,
of necessity, that the child will take of the
two elements of the God idea only the more
concrete, and the other element will be ne
LII - ,,l,l %
thinking is altogether crude, realistic and
concrete, its idea of God will become also
crud5, realistic and concrete.
Aid mind, those first impressions stick
for life No matter how high the chlld's
intellect may be developed further on, that
first impression Of the supreme principal
of the world as big man will always re-
main in the child'S soul 1t can never en-
tirely get rid of it. Dmly in the recesses
of conscience whenever God is mentioned,
for the time huge man will arise; and SO
through life the religious life of the child
will be Initiated by this first impression.
| Mr. Fiske, who in his recent book on
the Idea of Cod strenuously advocates
the personal conception of the Deity, does
not hesitate confess that he himself is still
under the thrall of this species of crude
realistic picture aud imagery. He tells us
that when he was five years old he can
distinctly remember that he imagined an
office right above the zenith, in which
there was long desk covered with open
ledgers. This Office was without roof, and
any person standing at the door could look
over the whole world In the Office there
were two men, one with long slender
beard, and aqailine feat res, wearing spec
tacles, pen in his hand and another pen
| behind his ear. This was God and then
there was an attendant angel, kind of
heavenly office boy, who was waiting to
transact business. And though he is now
a man of mature life, and of deep
thought, and has passed through an
unusually profound course of philosophic
study, that conception is still vivid in his
mind, and it would be interesting for the
student of psychology TO consider how far
his leanings toward the personal concep-
tien of the Deity are due to that first i'm
preston.
hold, therefore, that you cannot intro
duce the idea of God into the young mind
without degrading it, and appealing to
both parties, the believers and the non-be-
levers, | warn against the reckless, I'M
thinking, unrespecting, INSCRIPTIONS use
of the word and name of God in the educa-
ton of the young.
But now what are the practical reasons
why parents think they cannot do without
the God idea Well, there are commonly
three reasons mentioned: the first is, how
can we answer the questions that children
ask us. unless we say "God?" The child
asks you, who made the trees?" Well,
the parent is puzzled for an answer, and
finds it convenient to say God made the
trees, or, ''who made the rivers? ' God
made the rivers or, ''who made the
stars - God made the stars. How
otherwi Use can we answer these distressing
and perplexing questions which little
children are SO apt to put to us? Well,
my answer would be two-feld In the
first place many OF these questions which
children put are not seriously intended, are
:. horn 5f idia cnriaSify and will sph-